Steve LeBoeuf on the Las Vegas IT Management Podcast

Steve LeBoeuf, a seasoned technology advisor, shares his journey and insights into becoming a technology advisor with a focus on building and scaling IT-related organizations. He delves into his passion for aligning an organization's mission, vision, and strategy within the tech industry and underscores the critical role of leadership in the IT sector.

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K&B Communications

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you

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Hey, my name is Shatoya with the Las Vegas IT Management Podcast.

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And today I have the privilege of interviewing Steve Leboff, which I'm super excited to

get to know you a little bit more as a technology advisor.

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How are you doing today, Steve?

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I'm great.

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Thanks for having me, Shatoya.

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It's great to be here.

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Yes, I'm super excited.

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So thank you.

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Steve, can you share a bit about your background and how you became a technology advisor?

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Sure.

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Well, my background is pretty interesting.

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I have a pretty varied background of holding positions across many lines of work.

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I've done sales, I've done operations, I've done IT.

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Even as a youth, I worked on a farm for a little while.

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So I have a lot of experience working in a lot of places.

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My most relevant though is technology related.

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And I chose to focus on the bridge between business people and technology.

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So it's really the combination of those three things together.

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That's kind of my background, so to speak.

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Why did I do

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Yeah, that's a great question.

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You know, I felt that my experience could help other businesses and individuals leverage

technology to be more successful and to improve the employee experience.

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So that was what was important to me.

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And that's, I really kind of chose to go down that business slash technology route.

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Got it.

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And that was actually going to one of my next questions.

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But like, I guess to kind of dig deeper, like what inspired you to focus on building and

scaling IT related organizations?

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That's a great question.

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I think the easiest way just to say that, to answer that question is to say that I love

building things.

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As a kid, I had Legos, blocks and all kinds of stuff like that.

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And so there's a natural part of me that likes to of take things apart, deconstruct them

and then rebuild them.

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And so that's where my focus came from.

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You know, I've been fortunate to have been part of several high growth companies and found

during my experience at helping those companies grow, as well as the people themselves

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grow, aligned with my values.

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And those values are really just about striving to provide more in value than I

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And of course my personal growth and promoting growth and others, whether that growth is

in a company or whether that growth is an individual or a team or an apartment or anything

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like that.

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So that's where my inspiration comes from.

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Got it.

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And you mentioned Legos.

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Is there anything, any favorites that you like to build?

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You know, I mean, I think I don't want to date myself too much here, but when I was a kid,

should know the Lego sets were a little different than they are now, but I particularly

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liked the space oriented sets.

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So that was kind of fun.

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But other than that, it was really just about taking the blocks and building them in some

kind of a structure or a poi that was just interesting to me.

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the flexibility of that is I think what I enjoyed.

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I could take it apart and build it differently.

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I love that.

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Got it.

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I know there's so many communities out there with LEGOs.

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So that's so awesome.

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Yeah, I love LEGOs.

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Yeah, that was so fun.

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And so thank you so much, Steve.

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And then how do

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of course, how do you approach aligning an organization's missions, vision, and strategy,

particularly in the tech industry?

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that's fantastic.

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So the first thing you need to do is understand what it is.

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Like, what is that organization's vision, mission?

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And then what are the strategies that align to those visions and missions?

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If those are clear, then it's actually pretty straightforward.

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You just need to make sure that your actions and your resources, so the direction that you

provide, the outcomes that you're seeking,

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that you guide people along those lines so that whatever it is that they do, I can ask

them this question.

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Is what you're doing, does it support the vision and mission of this company?

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And if so, how?

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And if they can answer that quickly, then you're great.

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If they can't, then we have a problem, right?

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And then we have something that we can work on to improve.

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We can either improve the clarity of the vision and the mission, or we can realign our

resources and our efforts to achieve that vision and mission.

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So that's really my approach is understanding

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with complete clarity what the vision and mission are, developing strategies that support

that, and then allocating resources, meaning people, time, effort, money, whatever it

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happens to be towards those such that we get those vision and mission accomplished.

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And I guess how do you figure out that mission?

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Is there a certain direction that you do that in?

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Yeah, I mean, I think the easiest way for me to do that when I come into an organization

is I really just ask the question, what's your vision?

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Right.

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If they just respond by parroting what the documented vision is, great, explain to me what

that means.

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And if they can do that, great.

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And if they can't, right, they can't remember it or they don't know what the meaning

behind it is, then we have to kind of go through some cycles to clarify that.

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It has to be really, really clear.

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I've been in some organizations and I'm sure it works for some, but I struggle with them.

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And I think a lot of other people do, but you walk into an organization and you ask them

what their vision is and it's a paragraph.

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And I'm like, that's just too much.

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Right.

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It has to be very, very clear.

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So I think that that's what's important is really just clarifying that vision and mission.

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And then now you can develop strategies and support it.

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I'm not sure if I answered your question.

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You did.

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That's awesome.

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OK.

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Yeah, I think it's really important.

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And as you said, a lot of us believe as business owners that we need a vision, but

possibly we use a system like, know, chat TV to.

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chat, she needs you to write that vision.

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So maybe that's not our true vision.

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So I can see kind of what you're saying, where it's a whole entire paragraph and you're

like, like, can you explain this?

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And then they can't.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I mean, this is, don't want to go too far on a tangent here, but I think it's such an

important aspect of business and having some, you know, a clear vision and a mission

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associated with that.

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I'll take a moment just to elaborate on that a little bit.

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You know, I think your vision is your, is your aspirational statement.

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It's kind of like, am I going to improve the world statement?

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You're probably never going to fully realize or achieve that vision, but that's your

vision.

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It's kind of like the concept of world peace.

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It's unlikely everybody's going to be peaceful about everything all the time everywhere,

but we can aspire to that.

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And then now our mission, we're to choose a way that we're going to go after that vision

of world peace.

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I think that that's really, really important.

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We can use things like chat, GBT.

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We can talk about that as if you want more other AI tools to help us sort of into it or

come up with ideas, right?

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And brainstorm.

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They're definitely great tools for that.

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But if, if you say, Hey, I'm a technology company, please write me a vision.

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Yeah, that's probably not going to work out for you.

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So right.

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100%.

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And Steve, can you provide an example of a successful alignment you've achieved in one of

your recent projects?

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Sure, there's a lot of examples, but probably the simplest one that I can do in the time

allotted here is to talk about, there was a company who decided that it was important to

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go to increase their geographical expansion, right?

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They wanted to move into other markets, into other physical areas from where they were

currently located.

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So the company's vision mission informed their strategy, right?

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They said, here's our vision, here's our mission.

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And our strategy to achieve that was we need to expand our footprint geographically.

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So to align and support to that initiative, or basically I just needed to think in that

context.

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But that meant as a technology leader, as an IT leader, as a person coming in to say, I'm

going to develop some strategies to achieve that, thinking in that context.

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Now I have a guideline for myself.

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So basically what we do is while we were building the architecture for this company to

grow, we had to consider various things.

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integration compatibility, right?

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So they need to integrate with systems that may not be here in this geography, right?

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In this location.

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So for example, if it was international, I need to make sure that any systems I choose

will integrate with systems in Europe, a Mia, a pack, whatever, right?

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So like I have to consider that I have to start considering things like compliance

requirements for those.

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have to consider things like language and currency differences, so on and so forth.

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So that vision and mission helped me define the strategy, help the company define the

strategy and then

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Therefore, it helped me to actually say, okay, well, now I have some boundaries, right?

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I some guardrails that I need to stay within to help me make the right choices for this

company so that it can not only be successful now, but be successful in the future.

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So that alignment helped improve things like delivery time.

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Right now, I've eliminated a bunch of things that I don't have to consider anymore.

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I've honed in or clarified the things that I did have to consider, all those things I just

mentioned.

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And then it provides a much

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experience, right for all the end users of the company.

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Now they know that the system integrates.

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And so now we know the company can accept euros as well as dollars.

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So things like that.

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That's awesome.

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And then what do you believe are the key qualities of effective leadership in the IT

sector?

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Yeah, so that's an interesting question.

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And I think the concept of leadership really spans kind of any any sector,

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or any time any particular being a leader is being a leader.

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Now, of course, you you might have knowledge that's relevant in your domain, whether it's

technology or manufacturing or healthcare or whatever happens, that certainly makes sense.

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But effective leaders, in my opinion, do one thing above all other things is they put

people first, right?

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We don't lead machines, right?

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We don't lead, we lead people.

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And so, you know, you do have to know processes and technologies and tools, those are all

important and necessary, but the people need to come first.

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So

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as a key quality for effective leadership.

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And if leaders have a genuine desire to build people up and support them, then those teams

are going to become more competent, more capable and more confident.

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And that builds trust.

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And any team that has trust in it will outperform any team that doesn't have trust,

regardless of their education level, their compensation level or whatever.

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you know, I think really building trust through focusing on people first is the key to

leadership.

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Got it.

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No, I totally, 100 % agree with you.

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Love it.

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It's very, very important.

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the end of the day, without the people, you don't really have a business.

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So how do you foster leadership within the organizations you work with?

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So, I mean, every organization is different.

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Some have different challenges and different strengths.

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But overall, I'd there's probably two major factors for leadership, from my perspective.

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And one is autonomy.

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And the other one is mentorship or mentoring.

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So, you know, if you do the work upfront to make sure that people understand what the

outcomes that are expected, then you can provide them the opportunity to deliver that

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autonomously.

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So if there's a manager or an individual contributor, an engineer or, you know,

salesperson or whatever, and they understand what's expected of them.

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and you're providing the resources, whether that's training or material or whatever it

happens to be.

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And you say, this is what you need.

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You let them go do it.

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That fosters leadership.

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And that way people will lead themselves because they know what's expected of them.

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It's really, really clear.

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And, but you're also saying, I trust you to do this, right?

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You, I'm giving you everything you need.

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And if you have trouble, you come back.

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I'm supportive of you.

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I'm here to remove roadblocks for you or to help provide you with resources that you might

need to be successful.

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But it's really up to you.

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And so I think that that concept of autonomy, a fosters leadership.

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Of course, mentorship is absolutely key.

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Providing someone with guidance and encouragement, a powerful for personal and

professional growth.

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Interestingly enough, not only for the person receiving that mentorship, but also for the

person providing it.

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I can't tell you how much I've learned, you know, by, by helping support others and

encouraging others.

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And I learned new things, not only about them, but about whatever the process happens to

be.

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And of course myself

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So yeah, would say probably, you know, autonomy, providing autonomy for people and

providing mentorship is really what's going to make a foster leadership in an

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organization.

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Got it.

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And sometimes I feel like you can learn more kind of what you just mentioned.

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You can learn more coaching someone because sometimes when teaching someone, you have to

have a bigger, better understanding of that because you have to explain it to someone

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else.

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Yeah, I totally agree.

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And you know, what's interesting is

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I've had a couple of executives, there's one in particular, I won't mention their name,

but I was very fond of them because they taught me a lot.

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And one of the things that was really interesting, it's not unique, but I appreciate that

they said this to me, that they said, explain it to me like I'm five.

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Right?

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And it really forced me to boil things down to its simplest level.

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And it was a skill that I started to develop over time.

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I'm still working on it.

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I'm not a hundred percent there, but it's something that became important to me.

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So to your point, we learn

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by helping other people.

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And then now we can reciprocate by extending that along to somebody else.

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So yeah.

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That's very, very true.

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Thank you, Steve.

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that's what is, of course, what are some of the most impactful technology solutions you've

implemented to improve product?

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You know, I think tools are tools, right?

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We talked about a little bit earlier about putting people first, and I think that's really

important.

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And so when I think about things like technology solutions,

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It's hard to say.

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I think the most important thing that I could respond with to that would be architecture.

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It's not actually a specific tool or a technology, but it is a solution and an approach

and an often a framework.

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And I think that's really important.

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As you focus on architecture, if you focus on systems and integrations and solutions that

are designed with an architectural mindset, right?

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Like I have a big picture and I'm going to build the foundation.

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It's like building a skyscraper, right?

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Like I can't stop, can't start with the top floor.

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I got to start with the bottom and I got to say like, wait, how tall is this building

going to be or how tall do I want it to be?

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And I got to build a foundation that's going to support all the weight of that building

and all the loading and everything like that.

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So that concept of this architectural mindset is much more valuable than any individual

tool might be.

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We actually want the flexibility to be able to swap tools out as necessary.

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And that's a lot easier when we've got a good architectural mindset.

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Yeah.

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And you know, if you do it in the right way, you're much more likely to align to business

needs and increasing the operational overhead without increasing the operational overhead

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associated with those systems integrations or solutions.

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So there's no real one technology solution that's right for every situation, but every

situation can benefit from an architectural mindset.

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And so to me, that's where I would put my focus in that kind of like most impactful.

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Got it.

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So pretty much you're saying depending on the business's needs, it could change.

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Is that kind of what I'm Yeah, I mean, I think if we just kind of pick a particular

application, right, or if we pick a particular, you know, I don't know, pick a SaaS

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product, any of a SaaS product, if you're kind of like, I'm at Salesforce, right, like, so

CRM, so okay, Salesforce, big Salesforce.

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And some people would say, I'm sure Salesforce would say this, we're the best, you should

have us, nobody's better.

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But that may not be appropriate for some organization.

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So, you know, the scale might not scale, it might

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too costly.

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There's all kinds of reasons why that might not be appropriate for particular

organizations.

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So instead of focusing on what the end tool is and trying to shoehorn it into my needs, if

I really say like, well, what is important to me?

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Let's identify that and then let's build that infrastructure.

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And I'm sorry, the end foundation to support whatever I want to put in there.

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So using that Salesforce example, maybe I need to make sure that

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I will document all my sales processes very well and understand where I am today and where

I might want to go tomorrow.

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I'm not going to do Salesforce today, but I'm going to architect it in such that in five

years, maybe I'm big enough that I will outgrow my current solution and then shifting to

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Salesforce, which had been has now become the right answer is much easier because I

understand where I am today and I've gone into it with the mindset that I can grow because

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it's

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kind of like Legos.

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So when you said that there was a long time ago that I sold insurance and I was, I worked

for a brokerage.

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So would you say you're more like a brokerage where you can, you're for IT?

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Is that kind of what I'm hearing in terms of myself?

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Yes.

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You know, that's an interesting question.

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I wouldn't necessarily characterize myself as a broker, but I can certainly broker deals.

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And what I mean by that is that throughout my, my experience,

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I've developed relationships with a lot of different vendors, for example.

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And so, you know, I know who to call for the right professional services, depending on the

size of the organization, depending on what their needs are, depending on what tools and

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applications need to be integrated, so on and so forth.

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So in that way, I can broker deals between companies.

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But my focus really

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being compensated for brokering that deal.

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Some companies are, that's what they're about, right?

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They're saying like, I'll help you find the right tool and I'll get a cut either from you

or from the other company or from both.

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That's not really what I do.

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What I help companies do is develop a strategy and an approach for them to be successful

based on their targeted trajectory.

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And so a lot of companies, you know, it's hard for them to justify at least initially

spending money on IT leadership.

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or technology leadership.

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There's always a feeling like, I could just buy this stuff myself online, right?

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Like SaaS.

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It's like, you know, and so the concept of shadow IT itself has become shadowy because

it's much more approved of than it was in the past.

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But, you know, I think that as operating as an advisor, I'm able to offer companies an

opportunity to gain a competitive advantage that they might not otherwise be able to

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afford.

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If you're a company of a hundred people, you're probably not going to go out and hire a C

-suite technology person.

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It's just too expensive.

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And you probably don't need it, right?

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But if you can have somebody come in who's experienced and say, I'm going to help you get

where you want to go.

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I'm going help you develop the plans.

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And then eventually when you need somebody, you'll be handing that person something to

start with.

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My observation has been a lot of like technology executives and high level technology

leadership end up walking into a company that needs a lot of work.

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And that's okay.

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but it's preferable if it doesn't need quite that much work.

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if the foundation is strong, we can just start adding floors to it, so to speak, to kind

of go with my analogy.

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It also allows me to remain independent.

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So again, not really like a broker because a broker would imply that I'm focused on these

providers.

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I'm not really like that.

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So it allows me to remain independent of objective, you know, operating in the

enterprise's best interest as opposed to my best interest.

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And I actually like that a lot.

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It's important.

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It's important.

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You know, I think it's the kind of thing where, for example, I've done a lot of physical

expansions around the world.

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And unfortunately, I was never able to find one low voltage provider that could just go

anywhere in the world.

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Right?

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It's just unreasonable, right?

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There's too many different variables that come into play.

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I think there's a couple out there that'll do it.

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And all they're really doing is they're subcontracting the local providers.

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The point here is, that, you know, by understanding what the needs are and establishing

relationships with people all over the place and standardizing the format that we submit

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the request and, and it made it a lot easier for just to go to other providers in country

or in state or in state or whatever it happened to be.

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So, yeah.

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That really excited me, Steve.

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So I think that's so awesome that that's something that you help businesses do.

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Thank

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Yes, no, I'm sure it is.

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And then how do you ensure that these solutions also enhance the human experience within

the organization?

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Well, you know, I think, again, the first thing we need to remember from my perspective is

that technology is a tool, right?

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So whether you're on a desktop computer or you're connecting through a network

infrastructure,

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or you're leveraging chat GPT or copilot or Gemini or whatever, AI tool or whatever,

they're tools, right?

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They're tools.

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They're useless without the person.

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they're not, they help us achieve things, but they're not the thing that we want to

achieve in and of itself, right?

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We don't buy computers just to have them.

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We buy them to use them as tools.

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So think that's the first thing is the way to ensure these solutions enhance the human

experience is to understand that these are tools.

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And the best way to ensure that tools improve the human experience is to approach them

from a human perspective.

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Right?

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So like, why am I providing this tool?

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What do I expect to get out of it?

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Right?

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What, what problems is it going to solve?

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What are the problems that the people have?

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Right?

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So that's really important.

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Understanding those challenges and what people experience in their work and then aligning

the tool directly to the challenges is the best way forward.

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But I see a lot or, know, often enough is we're putting the cart before the horse, so to

speak.

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That's the best.

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So we're going to buy that.

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And

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here, I bought you the best and you're like, well, that's not the best for what I do.

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Right.

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It's not helping me.

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You're now I have to learn a whole new thing and I only want to use 12 % of it.

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And so you kind of overspent and now you made my life more difficult because I have to

relearn this thing.

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So again, just really focusing on aligning that tool directly to the challenges of the

human, make sure that the tool fits.

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Right.

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So, you know, yeah, often solutions are aligned to perceive challenges or inefficiencies

rather than actual

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experiences.

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Got it.

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Known as a small business.

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I totally understand that.

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We've had to deal with those struggles.

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So I completely understand.

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And so what are some of the common challenges you face when building and scaling IT

organizations?

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Yeah, great question.

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I think a big challenge is pacing.

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And what I mean by pacing is, you want to be able to move fast enough to keep up with the

business, ideally just a little bit ahead of it, but not too far ahead of

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but not so fast that you leave the business behind, right?

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So the business won't tolerate that for very long at all.

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you know, an IT organization that significantly outpaces its business, right?

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It was likely to alienate their end users and deliver solutions to problems that don't

exist yet.

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I'm going to buy, again, I'm going to buy you this best thing.

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Yeah, but I don't need the best thing.

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I need the thing that works for the problem I have today.

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And so that creates actually an efficiency

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Conversely, an IT organization that falls behind the business is likely to lose the trust

of the end users and create an environment for employees to work in.

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Basically, your customers, the employees, are not going to be happy with you because

you're not servicing their needs and you're constantly trying to catch up.

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So all your IT staff is unhappy and they just burn out.

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And then around and around you go.

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So the point is, I think one of biggest challenges

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And scaling organization is pacing to make sure that you're going at the right space,

right pace.

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You're moving quickly enough to keep up with the business's needs, maybe a little bit

ahead to be proactive, right?

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As a strategic partner to the organization, but not too far ahead and certainly not too

far behind.

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it.

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So it's a balance.

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get that is absolutely a balance.

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That's right.

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Got it.

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Awesome.

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And then how do you address and overcome these challenges?

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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That's, this probably will resonate with a lot of people.

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yet it seems to be one of the things that's most challenging.

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If you want to maintain strategic alignment, you have to establish and maintain

relationships across the enterprise.

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So if you're an IT person, for example, let's say you're an IT manager of a relatively

small company, you have to maintain the desktop computers and provide help desk support

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and you to make sure the network is working and maybe you're in charge of managing AWS

instances or who knows what.

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But if you really want to be successful, and this obviously carries across the board,

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You really need to make sure that you're having regular conversations with accounting,

right?

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Finance, HR, the executive team, sales, customer success, workplace experience,

facilities, like any of these organizations that happen to exist.

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need to be ongoing conversations with those people and those teams to understand what are

your needs?

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What are your challenges?

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What's working for you?

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What's not working for you?

391

And by constantly having those conversations and establishing and maintaining those

relationships,

392

you're going to get a really good understanding of what they need.

393

You can be able to focus your attention accordingly.

394

If you need more resources, for example, I can't do all the things that the business says

that it needs.

395

It's a lot easier to get those resources when you can demonstrate, Hey, I understand the

challenges of our sales organization.

396

They've told me that they need this.

397

I asked them, if I give you this, what, how will that be positive result for you?

398

I'll probably be able to increase sales by 20%.

399

If you can get the sales organization to say, can increase sales by 20%, if you give IT

the money that they need, they're gonna give you the money you need.

400

easy my point there.

401

So my point is, again, the best way to overcome those challenges is really to maintain

relationships across the enterprise.

402

Got it, understood.

403

And then when you were sharing that with us, Steve, I was just wondering, is there a

particular customer that you work with?

404

There's not one particular customer mean like a customer persona or one particular company

or persona.

405

OK, yeah.

406

So mean, you know, I find that my sweet spot tends to be in like.

407

Yeah, I mean, I would go from seed to late stage would be my preference, although I really

enjoy working with some of the smaller companies.

408

So I would say my sweet spot for myself is probably in the one to five hundred range.

409

I'm sorry, one hundred to five

410

got it.

411

Employees.

412

you know, and it would generally be any company that leverages some level of technology,

some significant level of technology in order to achieve their business goals.

413

So, you know, the interesting thing for me is that that scope is growing, right?

414

10 years ago, I might have been able to say, well, you know, software companies, maybe

hardware manufacturers, things like that would be tech companies, but probably not

415

agriculture.

416

Now,

417

I can probably say actually that would totally apply to agriculture.

418

mean, if you own a family farm and you have 50 employees and more hands, there's a lot of

technology solutions out there that you could be using to help you become more efficient

419

and to monitor your crops and so on and so forth.

420

but yeah, I would say just fast growing companies in the 100 to 500 employee range would

probably be my sweet spot.

421

That's where it's really fun.

422

It's really exciting.

423

I'm just saying.

424

It's great to know.

425

And that way when our audience is listening to this as well, they know how they can help

you.

426

And then so of course, what are some emerging trends in technology?

427

Do you believe that will have the biggest impact on businesses in the next few years?

428

Got it.

429

Okay.

430

Well, I mean, you know, the big elephant in the room, I guess maybe again, mixing my

metaphors there.

431

But the obvious answer is artificial intelligence.

432

Right.

433

So, I mean, that's certainly a technology trend that will have a big impact on businesses

in the next few years.

434

We're only scratching the surface right now.

435

You know, it's an incredibly useful tool that has yet to demonstrate its actual value, in

my opinion.

436

So we're only at the beginning of this transformation, but I think it's clear it's going

to have a significant.

437

Right now, I see AI as a productivity booster.

438

So while it's likely to completely automate some things that humans do, I think it's

equally likely that it's going to align our work.

439

by helping us to bootstrap ideas more quickly, right?

440

So we talked a little bit about that earlier.

441

I've got an idea.

442

You can use AI to brainstorm that idea and get it moving much more quickly and iterate

faster.

443

Now that I have my idea, I can iterate on it more quickly and shine a light on more

potential pathways to achieve our goals.

444

So AI is an obvious answer.

445

Having said that, I feel compelled.

446

I feel like I got to give you something else because everybody's going to say AI, AI, AI.

447

I mean, I think that the concept

448

the Internet of Things is something that will continue to grow.

449

think that's a technology that will really continue to grow.

450

Our perception right now is that we have devices in our house that we talk to to turn the

lights on and play some music.

451

And that's interesting.

452

I mean, it certainly is interesting.

453

I use it.

454

I think it's fun.

455

But at the same time, major industries, manufacturing, health care, agriculture,

transportation, these industries are increasingly leveraged interconnected device.

456

to gain new insights, collect data, to control systems, so on and so forth, and improve

productivity and service delivery.

457

So I think that that's something that's also up and coming.

458

Got it.

459

Yeah.

460

The last few weeks, everyone's talking about AI.

461

So thank you for extending that.

462

Yeah, that's a lot of the things that we've been talking about.

463

So how should an organization prepare for these changes that are happening?

464

Well, let's take it back to the beginning.

465

got to have a clear vision of where they're headed.

466

So all of these things, even these kind of incipient technologies, emerging technologies

of AI and internet of things, and there are many, many others.

467

It's about choosing the right tool for the right job.

468

And you can't choose the right tool if you don't know what you're trying to achieve.

469

I can sell you the best hammer in the world, but it's not going to help you cut wood.

470

So it's less about the tool until you understand what that vision and mission

471

is what am I trying to accomplish?

472

So that that's how an organization should prepare prepare for those changes is to be

really clear on where they're headed.

473

And then they'll find the right tools that we can actually go I mean, imagine if you went

into, you know, a sales organization, and you said, Hey, I want to buy your product, I

474

think, how can it help me do x, because you have clarity on what x is.

475

Now you put the onus on them to describe and explain how it is that their tool can help

you better, right?

476

And then now you can test and validate

477

But anyway, the once you have that level of clarity, you'll be able to identify the

challenges and the inefficiencies, which in turn is going to help you identify the right

478

tools and changes.

479

So yeah, that clarity on that vision is incredibly important.

480

Got it.

481

It really drives all the decisions that you make in that line.

482

Understood.

483

So as we talked about at the beginning, the importance of having a vision and that we can

have a clarity of where you're going.

484

Absolutely.

485

I've got it.

486

And then how should you stay updated

487

latest developments in technology and leadership.

488

Gotcha.

489

Well, I mean, first and foremost is you got to stay curious and inquisitive, right?

490

You constantly have to ask those questions like, what is this thing I just heard about?

491

What are these new whatever, right?

492

So stay curious and inquire, ask questions, ask questions online, ask questions of

colleagues and friends and, and so on and so forth, whether you're asking about what their

493

problems are, or whatnot, or you're asking about some new thing that they did

494

They say something that kind of my interest, ask.

495

So that curiosity and inquisitiveness is going to be very, very helpful in helping you

keep up to date.

496

Because you might find that somebody else's need is similar to your need and they found a

solution.

497

So why go searching for it all over again?

498

Then they might have some insight that would be helpful.

499

The second thing is really related to the, we talked about a little bit before.

500

You're asking a lot of great questions here.

501

There's a lot of synergy in the questions you're asking.

502

So thanks for asking

503

Of course.

504

Establishing and maintaining relationships is key.

505

It's amazing how much you can learn over a cup of coffee, right?

506

Or over lunch, or having a great conversation, you know, on a podcast or something like

that.

507

It really kind of makes you think and you become aware of new things.

508

so, you know, establish and maintain relationships personally and professionally.

509

It's a great way to stay up to date because you know, the way you're tapping into the

knowledge of a lot of people instead of

510

And of course, there's the seeking out of new information from various resources, right?

511

Whether you read tech blogs or listen or watch podcasts or, you know, join groups or

things like that.

512

Those are those are some some good ways to networking.

513

Got it.

514

And I honestly interviewing, you know, multiple different, you know, IT professionals

every week.

515

I learned so much, which is so awesome about technology.

516

Brilliant thing you've got going here, Shatoya.

517

Thank you.

518

It really, yeah, it really creates an opportunity.

519

I love talking about it.

520

I hope that comes across, but it's amazing because it makes me want to do it because I'm

like, wow, imagine somebody talking about this to me two, three times a week.

521

I'd be fantastic.

522

I would get so much information.

523

So exactly like you've established a relationship, but I appreciate that.

524

Yeah, I know.

525

It's so far.

526

I've so much.

527

So thank you.

528

And I was curious because you did share, you know, a lot of tips on how to stay updated,

but is there something particular that helps you personally?

529

Yeah.

530

I mean, again, for me, it really is about establishing and maintaining those

relationships.

531

So for example, I've worked, you know, for a number of companies over my years and

established a lot of kind of coworker relationships.

532

But even now, when I, I'll reach out to people, right.

533

And I'll keep their contacts in the forefront of my mind.

534

And so kind of like, Hey, Joe, like we haven't talked in a while.

535

How would you like to go get coffee?

536

Right.

537

Or, you know, maybe I'll bump into somebody somewhere.

538

because I like to kind of go out and get coffee or lunch and whatnot.

539

I'll be like, hey, we should have lunch together.

540

So that really is the most effective way from my perspective, is really just interacting

with people.

541

beats talking with a human from my perspective.

542

So that's the most effective.

543

Totally.

544

And just curious, Steve, what advice would you give aspiring technology advisors and CIOs

looking to make an impact in the industry?

545

Boy.

546

It's tough when I hear the word advice.

547

I'm like, I get a little shy about providing advice.

548

Like, well, do I want to provide advice?

549

Do I qualify to provide advice here?

550

Yes.

551

But I guess I appreciate that.

552

you.

553

I guess I would say, you know, I mean, again, there's a lot of overlap to this questions

that you're asking.

554

Relationships are going to play a big part in your success.

555

Right.

556

So, you know, if you're aspiring to become a technology advisor or CIO, or even, you know,

aspiring to move up, right, to

557

be advanced or to get the new job or to work at the other, whatever it happens to be,

knowing people is going to be your best bet.

558

I mean, this is a pretty proven fact, especially for job seekers.

559

It's more who you know than anything else.

560

Because there's lots of very qualified people out there, but people hire people they know

first.

561

If they don't know anybody that fits the role, then they'll go out and see somebody else

that they don't know.

562

So again, relationships.

563

Beyond that, I I think that if you're really starting to look at talking with

564

more executive level people, your ability to communicate effectively, right?

565

Like starting with the end, which is this is my recommendation, as opposed to telling a

long story upfront, but this is my recommendation.

566

And this is why I recommend it.

567

And then they ask for querifying of information.

568

again, that's an example of communicating effectively and the ability to influence others.

569

You know, that doesn't mean coerce or manipulate.

570

That just means the ability to influence them, to get them to think about things and to

take action on their thoughts there are absolute requirements.

571

So those are skills that I would recommend developing it.

572

And above all, of course, it's like, be humble, be honest.

573

You don't know everything, right?

574

I don't know anything.

575

Nobody knows everything.

576

So be humble about what you can do.

577

Be honest about yourself, to yourself, with yourself and with others.

578

And again, strive to provide more value than you receive in compensation.

579

I totally agree.

580

Building relationships is huge.

581

And then also, as you said, knowing that you don't know everything and that's okay.

582

You don't, nobody does.

583

I love the way you said that you don't know everything, but it's okay.

584

It's okay.

585

That's the human state.

586

And that's good.

587

There's nothing wrong with that.

588

Right.

589

Well, thank you for sharing Steve.

590

And then are there any, of course, are there any specific projects you are currently

working on that you would like to share with us?

591

boy.

592

mean, my current project, honestly, right now, my current project is taking some time for

myself.

593

It's the summer.

594

And, you know, I'm trying to spend a little bit of time enjoying my home, my hometown, you

know, family, things like that.

595

It's really important.

596

So that's kind of the thing.

597

mean, I would encourage everybody to find a way to do that.

598

You know, I know that a lot of people, I can't take a sabbatical or I can't take a month

off.

599

Totally get it.

600

Right.

601

I really, really understand that.

602

But find some time.

603

10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, you know, an hour a week, something is really making

sure to find some time.

604

But that's really where I am right now.

605

That's the most interesting project right now is my personal well -being and personal

development.

606

And so that's really, you know, I could go on and on for any number of the topics that we

talked about today and I can talk about all kinds of projects and those are important to

607

me, but nothing's more important than that.

608

And so sometimes even just a little bit each day to step back and reflect on your life is

important.

609

So that's kind of how I'd answer that question.

610

No, and I agree.

611

I think it's very, very important.

612

And sometimes being in the hustle,

613

We forget the importance of taking time off.

614

But during the times that you are in the hustle, is there, I guess, is there any examples

that you you rewind?

615

Is there any examples that you'd like to share with us?

616

Examples of like when you're in the hustle, when you're in the hustle and when you are

able to take some time off, like, is there any examples that you'd like to share with us

617

on how you're able to relax or what you do to relax?

618

got it.

619

Yeah.

620

Yeah.

621

So you're basically saying, well, what do do for fun?

622

Besides work, besides

623

Right?

624

I mean, you know, I've it's kind of been an evolution for me.

625

I've become a little bit more of an outdoor person, not that I ever dislike being outside,

but now I'm more deliberate about that.

626

And so what I like to do for fun that helps me relax.

627

I run a little bit.

628

I walk a lot.

629

You know, I definitely do exercises.

630

I love to kind of go places.

631

I'll go into a city or downtown or something like that and just kind of absorb the culture

around

632

Right now, I really enjoyed that.

633

That's relaxing for me.

634

And it kind of helps me get different perspectives and different insights.

635

So that's fun.

636

Other than that, I mean, I like traveling, I enjoy going places, even just kind of

relatively local places.

637

And I don't have to travel across the world or anything like that.

638

But those are fun.

639

And they kind of like a good opportunity for me to come up with a different perspective.

640

I find that stepping back often gives you I mean, you can even imagine it gives you a

different perspective.

641

So anyway, I'll stop going down that route and just say, I really enjoy getting out

talking with people.

642

exercising, traveling and experiencing the environment.

643

That's fun for me.

644

Got it.

645

No, awesome, Steve.

646

And I'm very similar.

647

I'm so glad to hear that.

648

So thank you for sharing that with us.

649

Is there, of course, is there a particular topic you're passionate about that we haven't

covered yet?

650

man.

651

There's a lot of things that are important to

652

We've covered quite a few of those today.

653

I mean, like putting people first, right?

654

And there's a topic that I'm passionate about.

655

Clear vision, mission strategy.

656

Clearly has come up several times.

657

That's a topic I'm passionate about.

658

Architectural mindset, topic I'm passionate about.

659

Effective communication and relationships.

660

Organizational design.

661

We didn't really talk about that too much.

662

I don't know that I'm passionate about it, but I do feel strongly that it's important,

right?

663

You don't want to be haphazard with your organizational design.

664

You know, there needs to be a reason

665

People are organized in a certain way and that they have the responsibilities that they

have and that there's reporting and support structure that exists for a reason and so on

666

and so forth, whether that's regulatory compliance or it's checks and balances or who

knows, whatever.

667

But organizational design, we didn't really talk much about, but that's interesting to me.

668

I can talk for hours on any one of these.

669

I won't.

670

So I'll just say the one that I just added was organizational design.

671

That's interesting.

672

Got it.

673

And just in case our audience does not understand, what does that mean?

674

I mean, it means a lot of different things depending on who you're talking to.

675

But the way that I describe it really is if I look at the organization holistically, so if

I step back from the organization and I look at the big picture of it, who are the

676

players?

677

Who are the people in here?

678

What are their roles and responsibilities?

679

And so why is this person here at this company?

680

What do they do?

681

And how does what they

682

both support division and mission, there it is again, but also support the people that

they're working with, right?

683

So are they a member of a team?

684

How do they support their boss?

685

How does the boss support them?

686

How do they support these other teams over here?

687

So are there components, for example, of IT that support finance?

688

And in what way do they do that?

689

Right?

690

And so on and so forth.

691

So it's really about understanding all these people and how they fit in the big picture of

the company, both with each other and holistically

692

that that to me is organizational design and it's intentional.

693

Right?

694

We don't want to just, don't want to follow what somebody else did because it might not be

appropriate for you.

695

And you certainly don't want to just everybody just do whatever you think is best.

696

That's not going to work.

697

Unfortunately.

698

Right.

699

Put some guardrails up for that.

700

Yeah, so that's very true.

701

And what is the most important piece of advice you would give a business to business

leaders looking to align their technology strategy with their overall mission?

702

Yeah.

703

But since you said the mission word, I'm going to say the vision word again.

704

You know, I mean, again, the most important thing a business could do is clearly

articulate their vision and mission and values.

705

Right.

706

So you should be able to walk up to any employee, any person in the company, and you

should be able to say like, what's our vision?

707

And they should be able to tell you what the vision is.

708

What's our mission?

709

This is what our mission is.

710

What are the values of this company?

711

These are our values.

712

And what are those mean?

713

What does our vision mean?

714

What does our mission mean?

715

What do these values mean?

716

Right?

717

I can say open, he open, that's a value, right?

718

What does that mean?

719

What's the context of it?

720

So I think again, the most important piece of advice I give to any business leaders

looking to align their technology is you got to get clear on that, Vision, mission,

721

strategy, values, those things, clarity, right?

722

If any of that is too lengthy or too convoluted or too complex, remember it's going to be

incredibly difficult to align those strategies for departments or individuals to them.

723

So, you know, kind of thinking that question of like, okay, how am I going to align this

technology strategy with the overall mission?

724

Well, I got to understand what the mission is.

725

Driving that is the most important.

726

Got it.

727

Now that's awesome.

728

And then how can our listeners get in touch with you and learn more about your work?

729

Yeah, I mean, I think probably the most ubiquitous concept of a business card I can think

about these days is really just LinkedIn.

730

So just find me on LinkedIn.

731

You know, I'm on there.

732

It's not super complicated.

733

You know, I do check it from time to time.

734

So if I got a DM, I'm probably will respond to you.

735

I even try to respond to those in -mail ones just to say, you guys don't lose your

credits, even if this is not appropriate, not applicable, sorry, not applicable to what

736

I'm doing.

737

But yeah, I would say LinkedIn is probably the best place to find me.

738

Got it.

739

Awesome.

740

And that's actually where we connected on LinkedIn.

741

That is exactly.

742

Yeah.

743

And it's, mean, it's a great tool, you know, for a lot of purposes.

744

And so I appreciate that it's there.

745

I very much appreciate the fact that you reached out and that we're having this

conversation now.

746

I enjoy it.

747

Awesome.

748

Me too.

749

Hopefully my energy is coming across.

750

I'm very excited to have the conversation.

751

Steve, you've actually excited me with this conversation.

752

So thank you for that.

753

I love it.

754

And so, no, it was a pleasure to speak with you for the 45 minutes that we did chat.

755

Holy cow, really?

756

That's impressive.

757

But yes, super excited to learn a little bit about you today, Steve, and how you can help

our listeners.

758

But everyone, thank you so much.

759

And we'll be back next week.

760

Thank you.